0:00:01.115,0:00:06.520
So a chip, a poet and a boy.

0:00:06.520,0:00:08.485
It's just about 20 years ago,

0:00:08.485,0:00:11.989
June 1994, when Intel announced

0:00:11.989,0:00:14.002
that there was a flaw

0:00:14.002,0:00:16.819
at the core of their Pentium chip.

0:00:16.819,0:00:19.200
Deep in the code of the SRT algorithm

0:00:19.200,0:00:21.451
to calculate intermediate quotients necessary

0:00:21.451,0:00:23.285
for iterative floating points of divisions --

0:00:23.285,0:00:26.384
I don't know what that means, but [br]it's what it says on Wikipedia —

0:00:26.384,0:00:29.263
there was a flaw and an error

0:00:29.263,0:00:31.479
that meant that there was a certain probability

0:00:31.479,0:00:34.487
that the result of the calculation would be an error,

0:00:34.487,0:00:37.080
and the probability was one out of every

0:00:37.080,0:00:40.617
360 billion calculations.

0:00:40.617,0:00:42.611
So Intel said your average spreadsheet

0:00:42.611,0:00:47.117
would be flawed once every 27,000 years.

0:00:47.117,0:00:48.411
They didn't think it was significant,

0:00:48.411,0:00:51.637
but there was an outrage in the community.

0:00:51.637,0:00:53.987
The community, the techies, said, this flaw

0:00:53.987,0:00:55.068
has to be addressed.

0:00:55.068,0:00:57.069
They were not going to stand by quietly

0:00:57.069,0:00:59.017
as Intel gave them these chips.

0:00:59.017,0:01:01.063
So there was a revolution across the world.

0:01:01.063,0:01:04.093
People marched to demand --

0:01:04.093,0:01:06.202
okay, not really exactly like that —

0:01:06.202,0:01:08.943
but they rose up and they demanded

0:01:08.943,0:01:11.935
that Intel fix the flaw.

0:01:11.935,0:01:17.787
And Intel set aside 475 million dollars

0:01:17.787,0:01:20.029
to fund the replacement of millions of chips

0:01:20.029,0:01:21.120
to fix the flaw.

0:01:21.120,0:01:23.332
So billions of dollars in our society

0:01:23.332,0:01:25.516
was spent to address a problem

0:01:25.516,0:01:29.607
which would come once out of every 360 billion

0:01:29.607,0:01:31.694
calculations.

0:01:31.694,0:01:34.297
Number two, a poet.

0:01:34.297,0:01:36.577
This is Martin Niemöller.

0:01:36.577,0:01:38.110
You're familiar with his poetry.

0:01:38.110,0:01:39.886
Around the height of the Nazi period,

0:01:39.886,0:01:42.158
he started repeating the verse,

0:01:42.158,0:01:43.893
"First they came for the communists,

0:01:43.893,0:01:45.424
and I did nothing,

0:01:45.424,0:01:47.674
did not speak out because I was not a communist.

0:01:47.674,0:01:48.728
Then they came for the socialists.

0:01:48.728,0:01:50.690
Then they came for the trade unions.

0:01:50.690,0:01:51.936
Then they came for the Jews.

0:01:51.936,0:01:54.838
And then they came for me.

0:01:54.838,0:01:59.509
But there was no one left to speak for me."

0:01:59.509,0:02:02.638
Now, Niemöller is offering a certain kind of insight.

0:02:02.638,0:02:05.970
This is an insight at the core of intelligence.

0:02:05.970,0:02:08.684
We could call it cluefulness.

0:02:08.684,0:02:11.245
It's a certain kind of test:

0:02:11.245,0:02:13.037
Can you recognize

0:02:13.037,0:02:15.541
an underlying threat and respond?

0:02:15.541,0:02:19.031
Can you save yourself or save your kind?

0:02:19.031,0:02:20.770
Turns out ants are pretty good at this.

0:02:20.770,0:02:22.853
Cows, not so much.

0:02:22.853,0:02:25.283
So can you see the pattern?

0:02:25.283,0:02:27.630
Can you see a pattern and then recognize

0:02:27.630,0:02:31.682
and do something about it? Number two.

0:02:31.682,0:02:33.609
Number three, a boy.

0:02:33.609,0:02:35.910
This is my friend Aaron Swartz.

0:02:35.910,0:02:37.341
He's Tim's friend.

0:02:37.341,0:02:39.373
He's friends of many of you in this audience,

0:02:39.373,0:02:40.798
and seven years ago,

0:02:40.798,0:02:43.784
Aaron came to me with a question.

0:02:43.784,0:02:46.367
It was just before I was going[br]to give my first TED Talk.

0:02:46.367,0:02:48.790
I was so proud. I was telling him about my talk,

0:02:48.790,0:02:51.297
"Laws that choke creativity."

0:02:51.297,0:02:52.906
And Aaron looked at me

0:02:52.906,0:02:54.857
and was a little impatient, and he said,

0:02:54.857,0:02:58.950
"So how are you ever

0:02:58.950,0:03:00.990
going to solve the problems you're talking about?

0:03:00.990,0:03:02.792
Copyright policy, Internet policy,

0:03:02.792,0:03:05.982
how are you ever going to address those problems

0:03:05.982,0:03:09.215
so long as there's this fundamental corruption

0:03:09.215,0:03:12.060
in the way our government works?"

0:03:12.060,0:03:14.665
So I was a little put off by this.

0:03:14.665,0:03:16.650
He wasn't sharing in my celebration.

0:03:16.650,0:03:17.817
And I said to him, "You know, Aaron,

0:03:17.817,0:03:20.911
it's not my field, not my field."

0:03:20.911,0:03:23.467
He said, "You mean as an[br]academic, it's not your field?"

0:03:23.467,0:03:26.061
I said, "Yeah, as an academic, it's not my field."

0:03:26.061,0:03:29.392
He said, "What about as a citizen?

0:03:29.392,0:03:32.819
As a citizen."

0:03:32.819,0:03:34.415
Now, this is the way Aaron was.

0:03:34.415,0:03:39.476
He didn't tell. He asked questions.

0:03:39.476,0:03:41.226
But his questions spoke as clearly

0:03:41.226,0:03:43.914
as my four-year-old's hug.

0:03:43.914,0:03:45.330
He was saying to me,

0:03:45.330,0:03:47.262
"You've got to get a clue.

0:03:47.262,0:03:48.938
You have got to get a clue, because there is

0:03:48.938,0:03:52.000
a flaw at the core of the operating system

0:03:52.000,0:03:53.507
of this democracy,

0:03:53.507,0:03:57.805
and it's not a flaw every one out of 360 billion times

0:03:57.805,0:03:59.597
our democracy tries to make a decision.

0:03:59.597,0:04:01.418
It is every time,

0:04:01.418,0:04:03.814
every single important issue.

0:04:03.814,0:04:08.347
We've got to end the bovinity of this political society.

0:04:08.347,0:04:09.990
We've got to adopt, it turns out,

0:04:09.990,0:04:12.762
the word is fourmi-formatic attitude --

0:04:12.762,0:04:14.532
that's what the Internet tells me the word is --

0:04:14.532,0:04:16.604
the ant's appreciative attitude

0:04:16.604,0:04:19.242
that gets us to recognize this flaw,

0:04:19.242,0:04:25.055
save our kind and save our demos.

0:04:25.055,0:04:26.533
Now if you know Aaron Swartz,

0:04:26.533,0:04:30.171
you know that we lost him

0:04:30.171,0:04:32.503
just over a year ago.

0:04:32.503,0:04:34.039
It was about six weeks

0:04:34.039,0:04:35.919
before I gave my TED Talk,

0:04:35.919,0:04:37.814
and I was so grateful to Chris

0:04:37.814,0:04:39.245
that he asked me to give this TED Talk,

0:04:39.245,0:04:41.445
not because I had the chance to talk to you,

0:04:41.445,0:04:43.729
although that was great,

0:04:43.729,0:04:47.162
but because it pulled me out[br]of an extraordinary depression.

0:04:47.162,0:04:51.671
I couldn't begin to describe the sadness.

0:04:51.671,0:04:52.951
Because I had to focus.

0:04:52.951,0:04:57.266
I had to focus on, what was I going to say to you?

0:04:57.266,0:04:59.468
It saved me.

0:04:59.468,0:05:01.417
But after the buzz, the excitement,

0:05:01.417,0:05:05.892
the power that comes from this community,

0:05:05.892,0:05:08.443
I began to yearn for a less sterile,

0:05:08.443,0:05:10.960
less academic way to address these issues,

0:05:10.960,0:05:14.749
the issues that I was talking about.

0:05:14.749,0:05:16.605
We'd begun to focus on New Hampshire

0:05:16.605,0:05:19.273
as a target for this political movement,

0:05:19.273,0:05:21.810
because the primary in New Hampshire

0:05:21.810,0:05:23.600
is so incredibly important.

0:05:23.600,0:05:26.201
It was a group called the New Hampshire Rebellion

0:05:26.201,0:05:28.519
that was beginning to talk about, how would we make

0:05:28.519,0:05:31.769
this issue of this corruption central in 2016?

0:05:31.769,0:05:35.210
But it was another soul that caught my imagination,

0:05:35.210,0:05:40.547
a woman named Doris Haddock, aka Granny D.

0:05:40.547,0:05:43.909
On January 1, 1999, 15 years ago,

0:05:43.909,0:05:48.738
at the age of 88, Granny D started a walk.

0:05:48.738,0:05:52.008
She started in Los Angeles

0:05:52.008,0:05:54.970
and began to walk to Washington, D.C.

0:05:54.970,0:05:57.698
with a single sign on her chest that said,

0:05:57.698,0:06:00.282
"campaign finance reform."

0:06:00.282,0:06:03.010
Eighteen months later,

0:06:03.010,0:06:04.820
at the age of 90,

0:06:04.820,0:06:07.346
she arrived in Washington[br]with hundreds following her,

0:06:07.346,0:06:09.664
including many congressmen[br]who had gotten in a car

0:06:09.664,0:06:12.572
and driven out about a mile outside of the city

0:06:12.572,0:06:14.460
to walk in with her.

0:06:14.460,0:06:16.602
(Laughter)

0:06:16.602,0:06:19.892
Now, I don't have 13 months

0:06:19.892,0:06:21.534
to walk across the country.

0:06:21.534,0:06:24.176
I've got three kids who hate to walk,

0:06:24.176,0:06:25.578
and a wife who, it turns out,

0:06:25.578,0:06:27.476
still hates when I'm not there

0:06:27.476,0:06:28.645
for mysterious reasons,

0:06:28.645,0:06:29.950
so this was not an option,

0:06:29.950,0:06:31.110
but the question I asked,

0:06:31.110,0:06:33.658
could we remix Granny D a bit?

0:06:33.658,0:06:35.790
What about a walk not of 3,200 miles

0:06:35.790,0:06:39.710
but of 185 miles across New Hampshire

0:06:39.710,0:06:43.314
in January?

0:06:43.314,0:06:45.540
So on January 11,

0:06:45.540,0:06:48.426
the anniversary of Aaron's death,

0:06:48.426,0:06:52.169
we began a walk that ended on January 24th,

0:06:52.169,0:06:56.515
the day that Granny D was born.

0:06:56.515,0:07:01.095
A total of 200 people joined us across this walk,

0:07:01.095,0:07:04.869
as we went from the very top to the[br]very bottom of New Hampshire

0:07:04.869,0:07:07.265
talking about this issue.

0:07:07.265,0:07:08.865
And what was astonishing to me,

0:07:08.865,0:07:11.426
something I completely did not expect to find,

0:07:11.426,0:07:14.021
was the passion and anger

0:07:14.021,0:07:19.496
that there was among everyone[br]that we talked to about this issue.

0:07:19.496,0:07:24.602
We had found in a poll that 96 percent of Americans

0:07:24.602,0:07:26.441
believe it important to reduce the influence

0:07:26.441,0:07:28.687
of money in politics.

0:07:28.687,0:07:30.703
Now politicians and pundits tell you,

0:07:30.703,0:07:32.523
there's nothing we can do about this issue,

0:07:32.523,0:07:33.859
Americans don't care about it,

0:07:33.859,0:07:36.155
but the reason for that is

0:07:36.155,0:07:38.009
that 91 percent of Americans

0:07:38.009,0:07:42.531
think there's nothing that can[br]be done about this issue.

0:07:42.531,0:07:45.353
And it's this gap between 96 and 91

0:07:45.353,0:07:47.830
that explains our politics of resignation.

0:07:47.830,0:07:49.913
I mean, after all, at least 96 percent of us

0:07:49.913,0:07:51.775
wish we could fly like Superman,

0:07:51.775,0:07:54.939
but because at least 91 percent[br]of us believe we can't,

0:07:54.939,0:07:57.605
we don't leap off of tall buildings every time

0:07:57.605,0:07:58.915
we have that urge.

0:07:58.915,0:08:00.921
That's because we accept our limits,

0:08:00.921,0:08:03.680
and so too with this reform.

0:08:03.680,0:08:07.973
But when you give people the sense of hope,

0:08:07.973,0:08:14.690
you begin to thaw that[br]absolute sense of impossibility.

0:08:14.690,0:08:18.305
As Harvey Milk said, if you give 'em hope,

0:08:18.305,0:08:21.020
you give 'em a chance, a way to think

0:08:21.020,0:08:23.109
about how this change is possible.

0:08:23.109,0:08:25.960
Hope.

0:08:25.960,0:08:29.530
And hope is the one thing that we, Aaron's friends,

0:08:29.530,0:08:32.527
failed him with, because we let him

0:08:32.527,0:08:38.127
lose that sense of hope.

0:08:38.127,0:08:42.079
I loved that boy like I love my son.

0:08:46.233,0:08:50.202
But we failed him.

0:08:50.202,0:08:53.790
And I love my country,

0:08:53.790,0:08:56.144
and I'm not going to fail that.

0:08:56.144,0:08:57.316
I'm not going to fail that.

0:08:57.316,0:09:01.009
That sense of hope, we're going to hold,

0:09:01.009,0:09:02.475
and we're going to fight for,

0:09:02.475,0:09:07.175
however impossible this battle looks.

0:09:07.175,0:09:08.469
What's next?

0:09:08.469,0:09:11.630
Well, we started with this march with 200 people,

0:09:11.630,0:09:15.032
and next year, there will be 1,000

0:09:15.032,0:09:16.671
on different routes

0:09:16.671,0:09:19.181
that march in the month of January

0:09:19.181,0:09:23.009
and meet in Concord to celebrate this cause,

0:09:23.009,0:09:25.569
and then in 2016, before the primary,

0:09:25.569,0:09:28.530
there will be 10,000 who march across that state,

0:09:28.530,0:09:31.594
meeting in Concord to celebrate this cause.

0:09:31.594,0:09:34.365
And as we have marched, people around the country

0:09:34.365,0:09:36.223
have begun to say, "Can we do the same thing

0:09:36.223,0:09:37.340
in our state?"

0:09:37.340,0:09:39.719
So we've started a platform called G.D. Walkers,

0:09:39.719,0:09:41.710
that is, Granny D walkers,

0:09:41.710,0:09:43.837
and Granny D walkers across the country

0:09:43.837,0:09:46.939
will be marching for this reform. Number one.

0:09:46.939,0:09:49.219
Number two, on this march,

0:09:49.219,0:09:52.011
one of the founders of Thunderclap, David Cascino,

0:09:52.011,0:09:53.630
was with us,

0:09:53.630,0:09:55.488
and he said, "Well what can we do?"

0:09:55.488,0:09:57.817
And so they developed a platform,

0:09:57.817,0:09:59.739
which we are announcing today,

0:09:59.739,0:10:02.205
that allows us to pull together voters

0:10:02.205,0:10:04.883
who are committed to this idea of reform.

0:10:04.883,0:10:06.029
Regardless of where you are,

0:10:06.029,0:10:08.681
in New Hampshire or outside of New Hampshire,

0:10:08.681,0:10:10.591
you can sign up and directly be informed

0:10:10.591,0:10:13.579
where the candidates are on this issue

0:10:13.579,0:10:15.219
so you can decide who to vote for

0:10:15.219,0:10:18.137
as a function of which is going

0:10:18.137,0:10:22.605
to make this possibility real.

0:10:22.605,0:10:26.677
And then finally number three, the hardest.

0:10:26.677,0:10:28.500
We're in the age of the Super PAC.

0:10:28.500,0:10:30.609
Indeed yesterday, Merriam announced

0:10:30.609,0:10:34.859
that Merriam-Webster will have Super PAC as a word.

0:10:34.859,0:10:38.499
It is now an official word in the dictionary.

0:10:38.499,0:10:43.894
So on May 1, aka May Day,

0:10:43.894,0:10:46.681
we're going to try an experiment.

0:10:46.681,0:10:48.498
We're going to try a launching

0:10:48.498,0:10:50.796
of what we can think of as a Super PAC

0:10:50.796,0:10:54.060
to end all Super PACs.

0:10:54.060,0:10:55.860
And the basic way this works is this.

0:10:55.860,0:10:57.632
For the last year, we have been working

0:10:57.632,0:11:01.352
with analysts and political experts

0:11:01.352,0:11:04.684
to calculate, how much would it cost

0:11:04.684,0:11:07.106
to win enough votes in the United States Congress

0:11:07.106,0:11:08.926
to make fundamental reform possible?

0:11:08.926,0:11:11.728
What is that number? Half a billion? A billion?

0:11:11.728,0:11:13.568
What is that number?

0:11:13.568,0:11:16.333
And then whatever that number is,

0:11:16.333,0:11:18.438
we are going to kickstart, sort of,

0:11:18.438,0:11:20.369
because you can't use KickStarter for political work,

0:11:20.369,0:11:23.140
but anyway, kickstart, sort of,

0:11:23.140,0:11:25.496
first a bottom-up campaign

0:11:25.496,0:11:28.476
where people will make small dollar commitments

0:11:28.476,0:11:31.438
contingent on reaching very ambitious goals,

0:11:31.438,0:11:33.438
and when those goals have been reached,

0:11:33.438,0:11:37.577
we will turn to the large dollar contributors,

0:11:37.577,0:11:40.959
to get them to contribute to make it possible

0:11:40.959,0:11:44.482
for us to run the kind of Super PAC necessary

0:11:44.482,0:11:45.824
to win this issue,

0:11:45.824,0:11:48.718
to change the way money influences politics,

0:11:48.718,0:11:52.489
so that on November 8,

0:11:52.489,0:11:54.817
which I discovered yesterday is the day

0:11:54.817,0:11:58.508
that Aaron would have been 30 years old,

0:11:58.508,0:12:01.200
on November 8,

0:12:01.200,0:12:04.739
we will celebrate 218 representatives

0:12:04.739,0:12:06.826
in the House and 60 Senators

0:12:06.826,0:12:08.847
in the United States Senate

0:12:08.847,0:12:11.140
who have committed to this idea

0:12:11.140,0:12:13.006
of fundamental reform.

0:12:13.006,0:12:16.768
So last night, we heard about wishes.

0:12:16.768,0:12:18.856
Here's my wish.

0:12:18.856,0:12:22.100
May one.

0:12:22.100,0:12:25.483
May the ideals of one boy

0:12:25.483,0:12:29.964
unite one nation behind one critical idea

0:12:29.964,0:12:32.425
that we are one people,

0:12:32.425,0:12:35.902
we are the people who were promised a government,

0:12:35.902,0:12:38.031
a government that was promised to be

0:12:38.031,0:12:42.752
dependent upon the people alone, the people,

0:12:42.752,0:12:45.601
who, as Madison told us,

0:12:45.601,0:12:49.178
meant not the rich more than the poor.

0:12:49.178,0:12:51.324
May one.

0:12:51.324,0:12:55.503
And then may you, may you join this movement,

0:12:55.503,0:12:57.511
not because you're a politician,

0:12:57.511,0:12:59.127
not because you're an expert,

0:12:59.127,0:13:02.419
not because this is your field,

0:13:02.419,0:13:04.099
but because if you are,

0:13:04.099,0:13:07.770
you are a citizen.

0:13:07.770,0:13:10.807
Aaron asked me that.

0:13:10.807,0:13:13.662
Now I've asked you.

0:13:13.662,0:13:15.340
Thank you very much.

0:13:15.340,0:13:23.385
(Applause)